Am I the only person who wastes a lot of time with this flight simulator? I've been a WW2 flight sim junkie for years. This is the first online aerial combat game I've been able to play and enjoy. I can't get enough of it.

I can usually be found on UK-Dedicated.1, HISTORIA, or some other well populated dogfight server one connects to through the HyperLobby server client.

Originally Posted By Kharn:I played it until BF2 came out.I quite frankly sucked donkey balls at it, and would keep getting shot down. I only managed to get kills by picking off the badly-damaged winners of dogfights.

Kharn

Aha, a shoulder-shooter! ;) I have to admit that I'm not very good at it either. But I don't resort to flying 'noob' airplanes either. Right now the LA-7 with 3x20mm cannon is in fashion. When I first bought IL2 the Spitfire was known as the Noobfire. I suppose there will always be an 'easy' plane with which to get kills, no matter how well they try to balance the game. I personally like to fly the older aircraft. They tend to have a tight turning radius. No amount of turbo-boosted engine power permits a monoplane to turn inside a biplane with a gravity fed carburetor. :)

Originally Posted By Tomislav:I play the living snot out of it. A while back I picked up a CH Fighterstick combo/pedal and a TrackIR, just for the IL2 series, and it is money damned well spent.

I tend to avoid the Air-to-Air. You'll generally find me in a He-111 or P-38, hugging the deck enroute to the enemy airfield on some multiplayer server.

Even after Pacific Fighters, I still favor the European theater.

CH Products makes great stuff. I think the fact that they also make control sticks for 'real' machines helps them to appreciate how tough a stick must be to withstand daily use. Most of the other joystick makers only make gaming controls. I've thought about buying a set of rudder pedals- they would likely improve my gunnery skills by a great degree. But I think they'd just be in the way when I'm not playing games.

I enjoy level bombing, but I wish it was more useful in DF servers. Hopefully Oleg's BoB will have more multiplayer gameplay modes and mission types. BoB was all about bombing- at least on the German side. Something that will encourage people to climb higher than 2000m would also be nice. I'm usually the only player on the server who bothers to climb higher than 2500m. It is lonely up there.

Originally Posted By Galland:I enjoy level bombing, but I wish it was more useful in DF servers. Hopefully Oleg's BoB will have more multiplayer gameplay modes and mission types. BoB was all about bombing- at least on the German side. Something that will encourage people to climb higher than 2000m would also be nice. I'm usually the only player on the server who bothers to climb higher than 2500m. It is lonely up there.

IL2 can model above 500 meters?

I set a long delay on the bombs and fly a F-111 profile in: 100 or so meters, depending on terrain, towards the airfield, and pop up to 500 or so to lineup a good run. One pass, and out at low altitude. Like you said, it is ultimately pointless, other than vulturing some easy kills, and I would love to see some real effects from bombing. (Reduced fuel or ammo or something along those line.)

I'd like to have seen some large-scale level bomber flights at altitude, but the nature of online play doesn't really encourage it.

But damn, what a game. I may have to check out that new Falcon release, but I dunno. I am fairly hooked on the WW2-genre when it comes to flight sims. Flying in WW2OL was good fun, may have to try that again some day...